The recent explosion of wireless communication devices and applications lends itself to many uses besides basic communications. The predominant use of such devices has been to allow family and friends to keep in touch with each other. However, due to high monthly fees it has been uneconomical to provide such devices to small children. In addition, very small children would not be able to properly operate the typical cellular phone. However, it is of paramount concern to monitor children for their safety. Therefore, the solution has arisen to use wireless technology to satisfy the need to provide child location systems.
One prior art solution is to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to provide location services. However, such service is typically incorporated within a communication device and generally does not provide interaction with external devices and services. Another prior art solution has been to install radio frequency (RF) tags, such as in a car for example, which can transmit a location of the car if it is stolen. Again the technology is expensive and requires a large transmitter power source, such as a car battery. In addition, special receivers and software are needed to detect the signal. Another prior art solution uses cellular technology to locate a control signal scan of a cellular device. However, this technique requires a high power source for the continuous multicell control signal scan and response transmissions thereto. All of the above suffer from high expense, being impractical, or being difficulty to use.
Other prior art solutions attempt to provide a relatively lower cost solution. One such solution provides similar communication devices between a guardian and a child operable on a cellular network. However, such devices require complicated addressing and timing schemes to avoid interference with similar local devices. Other solutions provide a transmitter beacon on a child, which is simple, and a directional receiver with a location display for the parent. However, the directional receiver requires special hardware and constant monitoring of the parent. This simplistic method is little better than the parent keeping a constant eye on the child, which is still the method used most frequently today. Still another solution provides a customized system that provides a bracelet transceiver for the child and a monitor transceiver for a parent, wherein the parent can signal the bracelet to let the child know to return to the parent. However, this system is not autonomous and requires a positive action on the part of the parent to provide a system activation signal.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method and system which permits secure signaling of location information wirelessly to registered monitoring devices within a secure shared wireless domain, in order to request a service. It would also be of benefit to provide a way for one or more monitoring devices to signal that they will respond to the request for service, ensuring that everyone in the domain knows their responsibility in providing the service.